Peter Ustinov
Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.Collection: Parenting
Monica Seles: I'd hate to be next door to her on her wedding night.Collection: Wedding
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.Collection: Love
If Botticelli were alive today he'd be working for Vogue.Collection: Work
Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.Collection: Funny
I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.Collection: Sad
Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information.Collection: Courage
The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.Collection: Religion
I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilised music in the world.Collection: Music
Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.Collection: Nature
In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.Collection: Freedom
If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.
It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.
Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.
Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.
Intelligent or not, we all make mistakes and perhaps the intelligent mistakes are the worst, because so much careful thought has gone into them.
The point of living and of being an optimist is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.
Men think about women. Women think about what men think about them.
Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
The social sciences were for all those who had not yet decided what to do with their lives, and for all those whose premature frustrations led them into the sterile alleys of confrontation.
I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
The only reason I made a commercial for American Express was to pay for my American Express bill.
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom.
I have four children which is not bad considering I'm not a Catholic.
Sex is a conversation carried out by other means. If you get on well out of bed, half the problems of bed are solved.
The truth is an ambition which is beyond us.
Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.
Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.
By increasing the size of the keyhole, today's playwrights are in danger of doing away with the door.
Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus.
Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.
At the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords we're all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.
I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
It is youth that has discovered love as a weapon.
The French and the British are such good enemies that they can't resist being friends.
I have three daughters and I find as a result I played King Lear almost without rehearsal.
A diplomat these days is nothing, but a head waiter who is allowed to sit down occasionally.
Books, I don't know what you see in them. I can understand a person reading them, but I can't for the life of me see why people have to write them.
The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.
Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.Collection: Peace
Life is unfair but remember sometimes it is unfair in your favour.Collection: Favour
Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.Collection: Faith
I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.Collection: Travel
If you're going to be a prisoner of your own mind, the least you can do is make sure it's well furnished.Collection: Mind
To be gentle, tolerant, wise and reasonable requires a goodly portion of toughness.Collection: Wise
I believe that the Jews have made a contribution to the human condition out of all proportion to their numbers: I believe them to be an immense people. Not only have they supplied the world with two leaders of the stature of Jesus Christ and Karl Marx, but they have even indulged in the luxury of following neither one nor the other.Collection: Jesus
I can never forgive God for having invented the FrenchCollection: Forgiving
Laughter... the most civilized music in the world.Collection: Laughter